Introduction to muriel's Story

Introduction to muriel's Story | Appreciation | Thinking

1963 color movie 1 17 minutes

Produced by Mnushkin Film Company in France.

Director: alain resnais Screenplay: Jean Geraul Photography: Sasha Winnie

The main actors: Delfim seliger (as Helen), Jean-Pierre Corea (as alfons), Nita Curran (as Fran? ois), Jean-Baptiste Tihei (as Bernard) and Claude Saint Valle (as de Smoak).

This film won the Best Actress Award at Venice International Film Festival with 1963.

abstract

1962165438+10 In October, Helen Ogan, a middle-aged widow living in Blagne by the sea, opened an antique shop in this small town and lived a leisurely and comfortable single life. One day, it occurred to her that she was eager to get together with her lover alfons, who was 16 years old, and relive the sweet years of her first love.

At the beginning of the film, Helen went to the small railway station in the city to meet alphonse and Francois. After alphonse's introduction, Helen learned that Francois was his niece, and now she is a trainee in a troupe. Helen said that she had just sold her car and had to walk home. Although the journey is not far, alfons stops to erect his coat collar from time to time, because the wind is very strong by the sea. At this time, several black and white movie pictures alternately appeared on the screen, showing the old city. Then several dilapidated buildings and streets appeared, and several old street signs showed that the town was destroyed in World War II, and the street name has been changed today.

When he came to the door of Helen's residence, alfons took Helen's arm and said, "I've made up my mind and I want to tell you …" But Helen didn't let him finish. Helen lives on the sixth floor. As the elevator was narrow, Francois went upstairs alone. After entering Helen's suite, alfons said, "If the room is not enough, I can share a room with Fran? ois." But Francois disagreed. Bernard, the son of Helen's ex-husband, came back at the aperitif. Helen introduced him to the guests. Bernard said that he had just returned from military service in Algeria and stayed there for 22 months. Alfons said that he had the best time in his life in Algeria, and he liked the country very much. The bright sunshine and blue sky left a good memory for his 15 years in Algeria. Suddenly Bernard took a scorpion out of his pocket and put it on the back of his hand, saying that it was sleeping and wouldn't sting. When everyone sat down at the table, alfons held up the crystal cups and said that he remembered them. He remembered that Helen liked raw ham best. She cooked roast chicken for her guests, but Bernard didn't like chicken. He went to the kitchen to fry eggs himself, and Francois followed him to the kitchen. Bernard told her that Helen was not her mother, but the second wife of her late father. Seeing that no one else was present, alphonse put his hand on Helen's, but Helen pulled it back. Alphonse then touched Helen's neck with his hand and made a gesture of intimacy, and Helen also escaped gracefully. Bernard stared at his round eyes while eating sweets, which was ridiculous, but indecent. Helen motioned to him with her eyes, but he got up and left the table and went back to his bedroom. Francois also left with him. Francois found it difficult to talk to Bernard. He fought in the war in Algeria, but he didn't want to talk about it at all. Fran? ois is always evasive when answering his questions.

Helen asked how alfons's family was, and Ah said that his sister, like everyone around him, had died. In recent years, he and Francois have lived in Paris. Helen said that she married Bernard's father, but he has passed away. She was always afraid that alfons would get hurt in the war and dreamed that his face was always in the shadow. At this time, the scene of their love when they were young reappeared. Helen said that she has the habit of going out for a walk with her friends at night. Neighbor De Smoak came to see her and left alfons alone at home. Helen said to de Smoak, "His hair is all white, but his eyes are as lovely as before." De Smoak felt very uncomfortable after hearing this.

At the seaside, francoise also told Bernard about his life experience. She told him that alfons was not his uncle at all, but her lover. Their relationship will not last long. Her confession had hoped to win Bernard's favor, but Bernard immediately got up and said that he would go to his girlfriend's date at once. When Bernard left, Francois shouted behind him, "I know everything."

In fact, Bernard didn't go to find a girlfriend, but went to a bar to sit around. Helen lost money in the casino. When she came home from the bar, she asked Francois where she had gone. Bernard said she might have gone to the movies.

It was past midnight when Helen came home. Alfons is still waiting for her. Helen told him about the past, but alfons was not interested in it. Just ask her for a key to the gate, and ask her if there is a photographic equipment store in the city. He wants to buy film to take pictures. This also reminds Helen of the past when alfons took pictures of her. When Bernard came home, alfons asked him where Francois had gone. Bernard ignored him and took a sleeping bag and left. Helen asked him, "Is muriel ill?" Bernard said angrily, "Who told you that she was ill? ! "

The next morning, alfons went into Helen's bedroom and told her that on the eve of the war, he wrote a letter to propose to her, but he didn't receive a reply. Helen said that she had never received the letter.

Bernard rode his horse slowly by the sea. He came to the studio to study the documentary he shot in Algeria. He told a friend a story that a girl named muriel was captured by Bernard's French army. The soldiers tried their best to torture her. Her arm was broken, her clothes were torn, and her hair and body were covered with blood, but the girl's two big deep eyes kept staring at Bernard. His comrade-in-arms Robert kicked her in the abdomen and buttocks with leather boots. When Bernard went to see her the next day, he heard that Robert had taken her away. This matter has been bothering Bernard. He hoped to find evidence of Robert's murder through movies and recordings, so he was unhappy all day.

Francois saw Alphonse and Helen are reliving their old love and asked alfons to return to Paris immediately, but he put it off again and again, and he was very unhappy. Walking by the sea, she clearly told alfons that she had decided to go back to Paris and break up with him immediately.

Helen and alphonse recalled the three-day romantic life they spent together in a small hotel before the war. They were very excited and hugged each other tightly.

Helen held a party at home and invited many friends. After three glasses of wine, Tan Xing was drinking vigorously when suddenly an unexpected visitor came. It turns out that alfons is a man with a wife, and the newcomer is his brother-in-law Aneste. As a matter of fact, everything alfons said before was a lie. He served in the intelligence department during the war. After the war, he started a film production company. He opened a restaurant after the company went bankrupt. Now this restaurant is facing bankruptcy. His wife, Simone, can't cope with the entanglement of creditors and is looking for him everywhere. Aneste also confessed the fact that when the war broke out, alfons entrusted him to send a marriage proposal letter to Helen, which he never sent for his sister's happiness. Hearing this, alfons flew into a rage, grabbed Ernest's neck and tore them apart. In order to catch this shot, Bernard picked up the camera and asked Francois to take the tape recorder to record this scene. Unexpectedly, Francois erased all the recordings of Muriel's murder that he carefully arranged. Bernard was so sad that he grabbed his clothes and walked out. Francois also took the opportunity to leave the crowd. There is only one box left.

Bernard came to Robert's downstairs and told him to go downstairs. Bernard shot him before he left the door. Bernard said goodbye to Helen and eloped with his girlfriend.

Ernest and Alphonse walked to the railway station together. Suddenly, alfons said he was going to buy a pack of cigarettes. He was caught off guard by Ernest. He turned and ran and boarded a long-distance bus to Brussels.

Helen learned that alfons had left and hurried to the small railway station, but the railway staff told her that the train to Paris no longer stopped here and everything changed. At the end of the film, we see alfons's wife Simone walk into Helen's empty suite and shout her husband's name. ...

Distinguish and appreciate

In the sensational effects caused by two epoch-making films, Love in Hiroshima and Marion Budd's Last Year, alain resnais found the famous playwright Jean Geraul, and after talking with him for more than a month in Deauville, a this beautiful city bordering the Atlantic Ocean, he began to shoot his third art film.

Muriel, or Time to Return, is still a film that explores the key role of "memory" in life, similar to the first two films of Kindness. "Love in Hiroshima" is about a French actress and a Japanese engineer who met and fell in love in Hiroshima, and told each other an unforgettable love affair. Today, these memories are not only an opportunity for them to get rid of loneliness and fall in love, but also an invisible obstacle for them to devote themselves to a permanent marriage. Because it is hard to forget the sincere love in the past, I had to "we waved goodbye and my horse screamed again and again." Last year in Marion Budd is about a woman A. She has a partner M. After being constantly reminded by another man, X, she seems to have left M and followed X into a maze. Alain resnais thinks: "Memories are often terrible, but they are also hard to get rid of. It will make people feel at a loss, and it will also make people go astray. Only in the brief moment of forgetting memories can people find happiness and happiness. "

Different from the previous two films, Muriel has two parallel interwoven main lines: one is Muriel, an Algerian girl who has never appeared in the film, and the tragic scene of her being tortured to death by the French army has always haunted Bernard, a witness. Former comrade-in-arms Robert * * * vividly destroyed Muriel, and Bernard failed to see the girl for the last time. In a trance, he felt that the girl who had watched him affectionately seemed to be still alive and might meet him from time to time. Then, he suddenly felt that she was ill, and suddenly felt that she should not be said to be ill. When his stepmother said that muriel was ill, he got angry and rudely refuted her. Only at the end of the film, he thought he had found enough evidence to believe that Muriel was really killed by Robert and killed him without hesitation. This just got rid of this worry that he couldn't extricate himself, and started a normal life with his girlfriend towards the distant.

Another clue is the first love of Helen 16 years old and the return of alfons. This is a bright line, while Bernard's is a dark line. The story happened in 1962 1 1 month, and it has been 23 years since the outbreak of World War II. Helen, a young girl in those days, is now a semi-old Xu Niang who is nearly 40 years old. * * * * widowed, living alone with Bernard, the son of her husband and ex-wife, accompanied by Mr. De Smoak, a close friend. However, her first love with alfons in those years was constantly confusing, so she couldn't help asking him to go to her new home in Blagne to relive the old dream. After being with her old lover, Helen couldn't get rid of her thoughts about her dead husband. While making alfons's bed, she couldn't help telling him about her husband's gentleness to herself and little Bernard, which made enthusiastic alfons feel that she had been poured cold water. When Mr. De Smoak, who pursued her enthusiastically, accompanied her out at night, Helen talked to him affectionately about her feelings of reunion with alfons: "Although he has silver hair, his eyes are as handsome as before." This naturally embarrassed Mr de Smoak. Regrettably, the handsome guys of the past have become too practical and even vulgar. Although Helen kept telling him interesting things about 23 years ago, alfons seemed to have forgotten all about it, and his mind was only thinking about how to arrange the present and future days. In order to cover up his wife, he fabricated a story that he had been wandering in Algeria for 15 years. In order to cover up that Francois was his mistress, he asked the girl to call him uncle; In order to escape the debt of the restaurant facing bankruptcy, he pretended to please Helen and tried to relive the old love and start another life. So, although Helen kept trying to remind him of the past, there was no communication between them, and there was no real communication. It was really irrelevant. Although Helen is interested in falling out of flowers, alfons is heartless.

Fortunately for Helen, this "return moment" is a time for her to rediscover herself. Now that Prince Charming in his youth has become vulgar, his feelings and good memories can naturally be forgotten. According to alain resnais's point of view, Helen can only start a new life with Mr. De Smoak (or others) by forgetting these worrying past events.

Alain resnais's films often reflect the war. Love in Hiroshima reflects the disaster that the Second World War brought to the people of Hiroshima, Japan. His other film, The War is Over, more directly reflects that 20 years after the end of the Spanish War, it still leaves people's minds and hearts with incurable pain. In this film, World War II separated the lovestruck lovers Helen and alfons, and the Algerian war caused serious trauma to Bernard's generation, making him almost insane for a long time and unable to lead a normal life. The photos of the ruins inserted in the film, the hero's memories of the death toll of the residents in the town of Blagne during the war, and Bernard's own real documentary about the French army killing muriel all accuse the evil of the war. It is worth mentioning that this film was shot in 1963, just five years after the Algerian war (later called "dirty war" by the French people). At that time, the French media kept silent. No one dared to report or comment on this unjust war in France, but alain resnais dared to directly expose the atrocities committed by the French army in Algeria in his own films and admired it.

At the Venice International Film Festival on 1963, Delfim seliger, who plays Helen in this film, won the best actress award. Three years ago, Delfim, who played "Woman A of Last Year" in Marion Budd, made a sensation all over the world and became an internationally famous movie star. Delfim, 1932 was born in Beirut, and has been active in the drama stage in the Latin quarter of Paris since he was 20 years old. The followers of Strasbourg School of Performance, besides appreciating slow motion, mainly focus on the portrayal of her voice. Margaret Dura, after starring in Delfim's play "Beyond Writing in One Day" (198 1), thought Delfim would describe herself like this: "Some people say that my reading style is different and a little funny, yes, that's how I talk in my daily life. I'm like a person who just learned French. I'm not used to speaking French, but I like speaking this language very much. Some whimsical cadences do not conform to any rules at all, and the stress and intonation are absolutely unpredictable, but this is my Delfim reading. " Some people described her as if she had just eaten a fruit when she spoke in Kan Kan. Her mouth is full of sweet and sour fresh fruit fragrance, which reaches your ears with a unique voice that makes people feel young. In fact, it is very difficult to master the two characters A in Marion Budd last year and Helen in this film, but Delfim has created these two characters with almost no prototype in real life so naturally and truly. Alain resnais once sincerely praised: "The great success of these two films is inseparable from Delfeim's wonderful acting skills." For example, Delfim, who is over 60 years old this year, said when introducing her performance experience: "For me, any role must have her past. If it's not in the script, I'll make one up for her. For example, the simple action of lighting a cigarette with a lighter, if the character comes from a certain class, then her posture of lighting a cigarette and lighting a cigarette with a lighter must be different from that of people from other classes or people with different social experiences. As long as I pick up the lighter according to her habits, this role will live in my mind. "

In morille, Delfim seliger deeply understood the director's intention, and she uttered incoherent lines in a jumping and strange way. There are often many forgotten blanks in people's memory, which are not always coherent, and the reasoning and judgment of the past are not always logical. When recalling the past, Delfim often jumps from a small matter to another seemingly important but irrelevant thing. There is no transition between the two. Alain resnais used unskilled flashbacks to express the past and present intertwined with dark and bright pictures respectively. This montage structure makes people vaguely feel that these things seem to have existed, but it is really difficult to distinguish which is the past, which is speculation or imagination, and which is reality. People can't help thinking: What is the past in memory? Should what just happened and what is happening in front of us belong to the present, or have they become the past? What is the practical significance of dividing all this clearly? At the end of the film, the clerk at the small railway station said a symbolic sentence: "The train to Paris will no longer stay here. Everything has changed ... "Yes, since everything in the world is constantly changing, how can you keep up with the times by indulging in memories of the past all day? Only by forgetting the memories of the past can we move forward and have happiness and happiness. Perhaps this is the moral of alain resnais's films.